Silverstone track day 08-09-04

[MarJay]

Well,
What can I say? it was a fantastic day had by all!

I started off this morning having gotten up at 05:30 hours, got ready and left for Silverstone. The weather at 6am was not that encouraging, being a fairly thick fog and a slight chill to the air. I headed for the M40 and had a nice ride of a few nice twisty roads on the way.

Having had a bit of fun, then the drudgery of the A34 then M40, I headed on to the A43. A convenient petrol station beckoned, where I met Steve (Harman - Formerly Scooby.H) and chatted to him and a couple of mates for a bit.

Having refuelled and warmed up somewhat I headed for the circuit, and when I arrived, the BCF'ers who had camped nearby were just unloading their trailers. They had successfully managed to bagsy us a BCF Garage, which had all of the mod cons such as electricity, running water and a toilet!

The briefing was rather School-Assemblyesque, with all of us having to say good morning to the organisers in unison.
This briefing was a little more preachy than other track day briefings that I have attended, and it emphasised careful overtaking and warming of tyres before riding at full pelt. We would later discover that many people (certainly in the novice goup) should have listened a little more to the briefing.

Heading out on circuit for the first sighting laps, I marvelled at the sheer length and number of corners that I had to learn. I felt certain that I would not know which corners go where by the end of the day!

The morning sessions were really just spent learning the circuit, although I noticed that a number of people in the novice group were taking the mick slightly with some harsh overtaking moves, especially to those of us who felt a little slower than they ought to be!

The morning session was slightly marred by a small crashette involving the unlucky Scratchy. The poor chap had a trip into the kitty litter on his 600 mile old GSXR600. Luckily the damage was confined to a crash bung, a dented end can and some minor gravel rash.

After lunch I felt a LOT quicker and a few of the BCF members had a few minor tussles out on track. Again this was slightly coloured by some novice group members who continued to harass the slower riders. Having gotten a bit faster since the morning, most of the BCF people were excluded from this, although Harman's friend on his ZX6R had taken the brunt of some poor riding. On this occasion, (unlike other trackdays that I have attended) the apexes of the corners were not marked with cones. This did lead to some very open interpretations of the racing line!

https://www.bikechatforums.com/files/dsc_9720small.jpg

I felt faster again in the second afternoon session, however overtaking was often difficult due to the ambiguity of the racing line. I did manage to overtake a number of people on this session however, and was only overtaken once by a Gixxer thou. The guy who had almost caused me to crash in an earlier session (by way of a poor overtake) had not been present in the afternoon sessions. I Believe this was due to a trip into the kitty litter in the last session after lunch!

https://www.bikechatforums.com/files/silverstone_201.jpg

The last session I tried to take a little slower, however the red mist descended more than once causing me to ride harder than I had originally intended. I also got into a minor battle with Jay12329 and Bendy, although another poor overtake by a CBR600RR and the chequered flag meant that I was not able to properly join in!

https://www.bikechatforums.com/files/dsc_2622small_142.jpg

All in all an excellent day, slightly ruined by a couple of hooligans. I still had fun and would still thoroughly reccomend it though!

https://www.bikechatforums.com/files/dsc_2507small.jpg
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Scratchy]

[JonB]

Sounds like a great day and you must be thanking your lucky stars that you had such a glorious day in September!

Also by the way, who was taking the photographs? Some of those shots were brilliant!
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[Bendy]

Being hardcore camping types (did someone say duvet?) me and Korn made our way up on Tuesday evening. 'Aquired' a spectacularly lost Wave2K at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere and ended up in a dark field masquerading as a campsite where we meet the rest of the usual suspects.

Onto the trackday. Bloody 'ell, it's a long track. The first 'session' consists of three sighting laps behind an instructor and then back in. Umkay.

Third session was redflagged after only one lap as someone had taken it upon themselves to highside on cold tyres and left bits of their bike all over the track. By the time this was sorted and another warmup lap completed, there was time for one 'hot' lap before the flag again.

This was something of an ongoing 'problem' throughout the day - cos the circuit's soo long, you only get a few laps in your 20 min session - first lap should be warming your tyres, last lap is the chequered flag one with no overtaking, so there wasn't a massive amount of laps/time to play. Or it felt like that to me anyway.

As Mark said, there was some 'creative linetaking' going on which sometimes made it a pain to overtake, but later in the day the twats had either wised up or were in hospital. Final session I had a good barney with Jay (we always seem to end up having a battle ) and was finally getting a handle on the track - just in time to go home.

Good day. Definitely up for going back.

A few pics for your amusement...

[Adam_P]

Gutted I couldn't get there! I had envisioned getting there by mid-morning. However, some last minute additions to the weekend and sourcing some things that I need to take with me took up most of my day.

Bet its the last decent day's weather this year too!

Looked like you all had a great day (apart from the wankers, obviously) come on folks that were there, give us more of the lowdown.

Unlucky Scratchy, that could've been much worse!

Bendy di you beat Jay, or did he wipe the floor with ya?!
I could have talked you through the corners of the circuit too Will definately make it to the next one. (He says!)

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Colin McRae MBE 1968 - 2007 RIP
Orwell Rolls in his Grave
God is imaginary

[Shaun]

Apologies that we didn't actually manage to get many lap times, Marjay, keith and Bendy were getting about 3:10 but I suspect they got quicker as we didn't get any for the last session or 2. Korn and G were battling it out at around the 2:26 mark but I'm guessing they got quicker too since it got a bit heated with Korn nearly losing it twice on the last session and G forgetting he had to turn. Dusty, you were way too hard to spot on the track and so was Scratchy, we managed to get one lap time for Scratchy which was something like 2:23 but this was early in the day.

[gsxrboy]

I was there!!

It wasn't until I got there that it dawned on me that I don't know what you all look like or what bikes you were going to be on...... so unfortunately I didn't get to meet any of you
I was in the pits about 11 ish for a while with my 2 year old son, did anyone spot me??

As for the poor camping arrangements.....I have a field about 2 miles from the track in whittlebury, 10 mins walk from the pub and 3 miles from tesco's. I didn't get in from work till late otherwise I would have offered, honest.

Lets hope the weather stays nice in october when I am booked in!!

[tgabber]

Well, I'd planned to go to bed early on Tuesday night as I knew I had to be up early to get to the track from London. That didn't quite happen and I went to bed at about 1-30am to be woken to the strains of Beautiful South at 4-45am. Somehow made my way to the shower, dressed and was on the road by 5-30. It was still dark

All going well until got Gatso'ed on the A12. Saw the car in front get flashed and while I was still thinking ha, poor sod, it got me too. Now just have to wait the 14 days to see if there was film in the camera. If so it will be my first speeding ticket in 26 years of having a (car) licence (10 years bike). Ironic really, on the day I probably achieved my fastest personal landspeed, totally legally.

Anyway, after that made my way to the track without further incident, arriving about 7-45am. Having parked up in the paddock then joined in the game of 'hunt the registration office'. Got chatting with several non-BCFers also wandering around aimlessly. Eventually found registration by accident while visiting the toilet and somehow managed to be one of the first to register.

Not having met anyone from the forum in person before I then sat and watched the queue to see if any faces appeared that I recognised from photos. Sure enough, was not long before I spotted a group comprising (at least) Bendy, MarJay and jay12329, so went over and introduced myself. In the meantime I'd managed to break my Silverstone issued wristband and had to beg for another.

Next moved my bike to the BCF ('Minardi') garage, right at the end of the pit lane and about as far away from the canteen etc as you could get.

Despite it being my first trackday, I curiously had few butterflies. In fact truth be told I was probably more nervous about meeting internet identities in Real Life. I needn't have worried as everybody I met was without exception a diamond geezer/geezeress. My apologies to the several people I never got around to introducing myself to.

Being a complete virgin, I opted for the yellow bib (invoking memories of a long forgotten CBT). The sighting laps were comforting, I was tail-end charlie (or almost) but had no difficulty keeping up, it's just a shame that we didn't get one 'real' lap in that first session as in the first lap of the second session I made my only real big mistake of the day. I completely got the line wrong at Stowe Corner at the end of Hanger straight and was all over the place, but luckily not off the track. I took the rest of that session very easy and was passed by just about everybody (more than once probably).

Settled down in the other sessions before lunch and whilst still slow I did feel I was getting passed less.

During lunch someone (Richard) from the next garage came over and suggested I might like to follow him as he was showing his girlfriend, on her first trackday, the lines. That I did for the next session and it was very helpful. It turns out that Richard had met his girlfriend when he'd had an off on a previous trackday at Silverstone, breaking a small bone in his hand. She'd been the nurse at the hospital... Ahhhh....

The remaining sessions I felt very comfortable, although I think I only overtook about 3 other people all day, and then only when they'd chosen to slow down for some reason.

This being my first I have nothing to compare it with, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only downside about Silverstone that struck me was that there were few easily accessible good vantage points to watch the bikes when you weren't on track, apart from the pit wall.

I put my GPS unit in my jacket pocket for the first and last afternoon sessions and it's recorded a wealth of information about my laps. Here are my approximate lap times:

[Ste]

Was good day by all I believe, despite Scratchy's slight crash but that's all part of running it in and a good excuse to buy a race can.

Good to meet more people and put more faces to names.

Prize for effort has to go to Wave. He was found at a random petrol station by Bendy and Korn on Tuesday evening after he'd come up to SilverStone, waiting around the track for a bit and when no one turned up decided to head home (although the petrol station where Korn and Bendy found him wasn't on the way home:lol:). Jay had said Wave could sleep in his car (he didn't mention anything about bringing the car to SilverStone though ) so the car was some ~100 miles away so Wave slept in Korn's car.

Seemed a good track and think everyone enjoyed it, not as good as some of the others for watching but okay. So when will you be getting your track R6 then Keith?

[Mr Pants!]

I really enjoyed it, had a chance to test out the new camera and see what photography I was capable of. Lets just say, out of over 200 photos, there are only a couple of good ones.... I think I will stick with IT for now....

It was fun to watch.

GOB SMACKED how well those crash protectors worked on Scratchy's bike, tonight we will rebuild it and make it look nice again, not mint, but better....

Also, nice to meet all you guys. Hope to see you at the next event, perhaps one day, I may even do a track day.
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Mr Pants! (Alex or Al)
Its better to burn out, than to fade away....

[swaffs]

[Bendy]

I've started a picture thread in the photo gallery.

Forgot to mention... there was also some F1 testing going on. Occasionally when out on track I heard this screaming noise and was like "wtf?" - all became apparent when the canteen was full of Williams people at lunchtime.

Heard it properly later on, sounded like they were running a car up and down one of the inner bits of the track or maybe the runway.

[sv_cath]

Me and Laura saw the F1 car (Williams BMW for those that are interested) while we were meant to be videoing the bikes and got hugely distracted by it - specially when he was doing wheelspins - so that's our excuse for the extremely poor videoing, well that and the fact that I got a bit confused with the controls!
Anyway, I had a great day and was pleased to see that the only BCF accident was relatively minor damage and no injury.
Nice to meet some new faces and what fab weather!
Looking forward to the next one....
Cath
PS Laura - hope my driving wasn't too scary!

[Kickstart]

Hi

Well, first track day for me. I took the FZR600 which I had only managed to get going on Sunday, complete with bodged exhaust. Prior to riding it on the track I had done 15 miles on it in total.

It is a very long track which also meant that the gap between sessions was quite large. We probably had closer to 15 mins on track rather than the full 20 of a session.

There were a few people being somewhat agressive in the novice group on overtaking, which got me into the bad habit of checking behind me too much (too long riding on the road).

The FZR went quite well, except the rear tyre that I thought would be OK for the day was pretty much screwed after a few sessions. For a 12 year old 600 it went quite well, and other than tyre issues I was happy with the handling. Could do with more power, but considering what I paid for it I am quite happy. Only other issues are the brakes are a bit spongy (but not back to the bars and I prefer some movement in the lever anyway) and I think the clutch is on its way out as it seemed to jump and hit the rev limiter a few times at high revs on the straight.

Not sure I actually overtook anyone on the FZR until my last session on it, but then I was on one of the least powerful bikes there so coming out of corners onto long straights people just disappeared into the distance, and I was not aggressive enough to try and get past people while cornering.

I confirmed what I have found when playing with karts in the past by being rubbish on the slow corners (I was the extra chicane), while being comparitively quick on the faster sweeping bends. Result was that I landed up catching people up through a lap only to watch them disappear as they got a far better drive onto the pit straight from the slow bends. The only long fast corner I was never happy with was the one at the end of the pit straight where you cannot see the exit and I always went into that too slowly.

The last 2 sessions were more fun as G was trusting enough to let me out on his R6. This was far quicker. I didn't push it that hard (not my bike, not used to it at all, etc) but had loads of fun on that and did overtake a few people. The tyres were slicks and I doubt I used 25% of their ability to keep the bike stuck to the track. Compared to the FZR it felt far better on the bends and was about 25mph quicker down Hanger Straight. The brakes were very sharp.

I didn't get my knee down, but then I didn't try hanging off (old dog and new tricks, and all that).

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Mr Pants!]

LOL!! Love the sleeping picture, well we had been up since 5am and it was very hot!

So who took that one of me asleep then?
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Mr Pants! (Alex or Al)
Its better to burn out, than to fade away....

[Mr Pants!]

[Bendy]

[Mr Pants!]

very good

I was woken by someone taking a massive tumble on the corner at the end of the start finish straight. He was okay but the bike was a mess!!! It looked like it had been in a compactor!
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Mr Pants! (Alex or Al)
Its better to burn out, than to fade away....

[Wave2k]

i need a new lid, i managed to ahem, headbut the dartford tunnel toll both bars clean off
let fazed through and not me, SMACK, look in mirror and i see a spinning toll both bar in road.
ouch
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Ducati 1299 Panigale
2009 Corvette C6 z51
RS125->CBR400->RXS100->GSXR750K2->Ducati749S->CBR600RR5->TL1000R->DRz400->RSVR1000->Honda VTR SP1->CBR400->GSXR1000K6->Honda H100->CBR600RR3->Ducati1299

[sv_cath]

[Korn]

What can I say, an absolutely fantastic day!

I actually felt confident on the R1 at Silverstone, and even got quite fast in the last 2 sessions. It's definitely a hard track to learn though due to it being so bloody long - but for my money it's the best circuit I've tried so far. Already booked to go back, I want another crack at it
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3516 Miles, 11 Countries

[jay12329]

Track day was great I had loads of fun when I eventually got into the swing of things.
My day started the day before. Loaded up the bike for the 98 mile trip to Silverstone. I stopped on the way for coffee, (£2.05 for mankey coffee what a scam!) and I was getting cold so the t-shirt went on over the leathers.
I got to the camp area at about 8:30, went in to the posh hotel by mistake got some odd looks walking in with full leathers! Then I found out the camp site was just up the road. I found it road all the way down a gravel path to find nothing and rode back up. I sat there waiting for about 40mins before people turned up. By that time my bike wouldn’t start cus the battery was dead(ish.) Charlotte then informed me the camp office was about 50m up away and I’d driven past it. Got he tent up and when I went back to the bike it started. We were all sorted so myself Mike and Shaun went to the ‘local’ pub. When we returned everyone else had arrived including wave who was puzzled by my car not being there!
The next day dawned and off to the track we trouped. The novices went out fist for 3 sighting laps, the thing that struck me was how long the track wad. Over 3 miles!!!!
Out on track I was finding it hard to get past people as normal the big sports bikes were powering away on the straits and slowing me down in the corner. I was getting quite frustrated.
In the afternoon me and bendy tried to go out right at the back of the group which meant we had plenty of space to do as we pleased and only the very slow to overtake. This was much better for me and I started to really enjoy it and I was going a lot faster. The sessions were ending way too soon so we only got 3-4 flying laps in per session. I was getting quite quick and in the last session I even managed to catch mark then overtake him when he ended up in to higher gear. I also managed to go round the outside of a FireBlade on one of the fast corners. That put a smile on my face!
Then the day ended, 98mile trip home in a little over 90minites. I now ache all over!
J

Ps, i wouldn't mind going back. but its still not as good as caddwell!

[Dusty]

Was a good day, wasn't so keen on the track in the morning, but got more into the swing of things in the afternoon. Got kinda anialated by Korn and G throughout the day, but didn't get passed much apart from these guys. (I'm blaming the cat's borked suspension for this ).

Had a near miss involving a kamikaze rabbit just before lunch time, which made me a bit weary of hanger straight for the rest of the day.

Would like to go back and will try and book the October one, but I'm with Jay - Cadwell is the better bike track imho (although the en-suite toilet facilities were nice).

Will try and get some pictures up later, although I also got very few good ones.

Ps thanks to korn and Laura for the loan of knee sliders.
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Gallery

[Shaun]

[Dusty]